Eunuch admiral who led Chinese into the world
PERHAPS it was the giraffes, or the holy frankincense, or the stories of cornflower sapphires and yellow topaz tumbling down mountains with the spring rains. Or perhaps it was the stories, preserved in puppet shows and operas, of Chinese success in outwitting foreigners in trade negotiations, to the extent of inventing a 'porcelain tree' from which blue-and-white vases were plucked. But whatever the reason, seven voyages to India, Indonesia, Arabia and even Africa by a Muslim eunuch admiral 600 years ago - and 50 years or so before Vasco da Gama even dipped his toddler toes in the sea - struck a chord in the Chinese romantic imagination that has resonances even today.
It paved the way for the millions of Chinese whose families have lived abroad ever since, even in direct disobedience of imperial (and more recently, communist) decrees.
Before Admiral Zheng He - or Cheng Ho - few Chinese sea-traders had visited distant places and even fewer had settled. But after Zheng, thousands of Chinese people wanted to try their luck overseas, and over the generations many did - whether for gold or spice, piracy or education, stability or adventure.
As Lynn Pan observed, in her book on the diaspora, Sons Of The Yellow Emperor, 'what Cheng Ho did was to make so deep an impression on the imagination of the Chinese settled in Southeast Asia that he has been deified there, and the cult . . . survives to this day. At home, in popular ballads and folk songs, the romance of these journeys took on a fabulous quality; and the exotic countries . . . appeared as an alluring eldorado in the miraculous tales told to children'.
What was the fleet like? Imagine four great wooden vessels, covered with sails, and with dragon eyes painted on its prow, and 300 other ships sailing into Hong Kong harbour.
Even today it would be daunting - all those centuries ago, the sight of the emissaries of the dragon throne quickly turned into legend.
The largest junks were about 14 metres wide and 55 metres long, 'tall as houses' and stuffed with Ming vases, kesi silk tapestries and exquisite lacquerware.
The massive treasure ships would have been prime pirate pickings - if they were not equipped with an armed guard of 28,000 men. So many ships, so many men, such a huge logistic challenge. As well as troop ships, the fleet included seven water tankers, dozens of food-supply ships, horse ships and warships.
On board were geomancers, medics, herbalists, secretaries and hundreds of eunuchs serving as ambassadors.
Eunuchs were common in China at that time. As the Mongols were defeated at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the Chinese took back power, they often chose not to kill the young sons of their enemies but castrated them instead.
When Zheng was 10, a Chinese general stopped him on the road to ask where the runaway Mongol emperor was. When Zheng answered the former ruler had jumped into a pond he was rewarded for his forthrightness by being adopted by prince Zhu Di, later to become the Yongle emperor.
The genitals had to go, but Zhu educated him and later made him a trusted adviser.
Zheng did not, by all accounts, have the girlish build typical of eunuchs. In When China Ruled The Seas, Louise Levathes quotes sources describing him as 'seven feet [2.1 metres] tall and with a waist of five feet around', although she emphasises the Ming scribes' penchant for exaggeration. The emperor, having won his throne through a bloody military coup, wanted to make the light of the Ming Dynasty shine brightly on lands other than China.
Hence the fearsome fleet (not rivalled until World War I) and the demands for tribute, trade and occasionally women that would be exacted on rulers in what today are Korea, Java, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia and down the African coast to Kenya.
But why did these voyages made so long ago - between 1405 and 1433 - make such an impact? First, they encouraged the first world craze for chinoiserie. It was not just blue-and-white porcelain - which became the desirable dinner table commodity from Aden to Timor - but everything Chinese. The silks, the colours, the arts became fashionable, and left a consciousness of a great empire to the east that would last many centuries after the warships and girl-hungry sailors had left.
Second, in China a new awareness of the outside world grew which again would not die easily. From Sri Lanka came stories of riches - of how when it rained on a certain holy mountain the water would rush down, carrying jewels in its torrents.
From Sumatra came myrrh, aloe, benzoin for the lungs and frankincense for the soul.
And from Africa came strange creatures with horns and long necks, which bore such an uncanny resemblance to the lucky 'qilin' of Chinese mythology that the emperor could not have enough of them for his zoo in the newly built Forbidden City.
And third, the fear of vicious recriminations from the Son of Heaven could not stop soldiers from jumping ship as far away - Levathes argues - as Kenya and Australia, bringing customs and stories which, mutated, are remembered today.
After the Yongle emperor died, everything changed: overseas tourism became punishable by death as the rapid succession of emperors tried to reduce the power of merchants and eunuchs.
From the greatest navy in the world, Chinese sea power was reduced to almost nothing in less than 100 years.
If the eunuch admiral's adopted son had been able to continue the tradition, he might have reached Europe and the political geography of the world be different indeed.
